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"What's at stake here isn't just who pays for climate disasters—it's whether our democracy allows powerful industries to simply rewrite the rules when justice catches up to them," said the communications director at Make Polluters Pay.
Over 190 groups are urging Democrats in Congress resist any attempts by Big Oil to evade potential legal liability amid the growing number of legal and legislative efforts aimed at holding major polluters accountable for their role in the climate crisis.
In a Thursday letter addressed to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the groups urge Democratic lawmakers "to proactively and affirmatively reject any proposal that would shield fossil fuel companies" from those efforts.
A quarter of U.S. residents live in a state or locality that is "taking ExxonMobil and other major fossil fuel companies to court to hold them accountable for this deception and make them pay for the damage their climate lies have caused," according to the letter. Maine, for example, became the eighth U.S. state to sue major oil and gas companies for deceiving the public about their products' role in the climate crisis.
The letter signatories include a long list of green groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity and Extinction Rebellion US, as well as the American Association of Justice and other nonprofits.
The Supreme Court on Monday denied a request by a coalition of Republican state attorneys general aimed at preventing oil and gas companies from facing these types of lawsuits. Trump has also vowed to block climate litigation aimed at Big Oil.
In their letter, the groups also point to a number of efforts, some successful, to pass what are known as "superfund laws," which force privately owned polluters to help cover the costs of protecting public infrastructure from climate-fueled threats. Oil and gas companies have lobbied against the passage of these laws.
"What's at stake here isn't just who pays for climate disasters—it's whether our democracy allows powerful industries to simply rewrite the rules when justice catches up to them," said Cassidy DiPaola, communications director of Make Polluters Pay—one of the letter's signatories—in a Thursday statement.
"Lawmakers must decisively reject any attempt by the fossil fuel industry to evade accountability and ensure both justice today and the right of future generations to hold polluters responsible for decades of deception," DiPaola continued.
The letter references episodes when "fossil fuel companies and their allies" tried to "secure a blanket waiver of liability for their industry."
In 2017, a carbon tax plan spearheaded by a group of Republican statesmen and economists proposed stopping potential lawsuits against oil companies and other corporations that release greenhouse gases, and in 2020, the fossil fuel industry tried to quietly include a liability waiver for itself in a government Covid-19 relief package, according to the outlet Drilled.
The letter also highlights that 60 Democratic House members urged leadership to categorically oppose efforts to "immunize polluters" in response to the latter effort.
"We have reason to believe that the fossil fuel industry and its allies will use the chaos and overreach of the new Trump administration to attempt yet again to pass some form of liability waiver and shield themselves from facing consequences for their decades of pollution and deception," the letter states. "That effort—no matter what form it takes—must not be allowed to succeed."
The demand from these groups comes amid broader attacks on climate and environmental protections from the Trump administration
On Wednesday, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a series of actions to roll back environmental regulation impacting issues ranging from rules on pollution from power plants to regulations for vehicles.
On his first day in office, Trump signed executive orders withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement and initiated plans to open up Alaskan wilderness to drilling and mining.
Why does the world do less for climate the more data we have? Insights from data journalism reveal that scientists and the media have to change the way they tell the climate story.
Not even two months in office and President Donald Trump has slashed U.S. climate partnerships and aid to developing countries, notably from USAID. Expected? Yes. International anomaly? No.
Last November's COP29 conference on climate finance showed the widespread vapidity of global action. Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, revealed 1,200 notifications went out about significant gas leaks over the past two years to governments and businesses around the world. Only 1% responded. The U.N. acknowledged "capacity issues, technical barriers, and a lack of accountability," but failed to acknowledge another contributing factor. People are fundamentally not incentivized to care—because the climate crisis is consistently poorly communicated.
Publications like The New York Times typically report climate change like this: "Emissions soared to a record 57 gigatons last year." The U.N. Emissions Gap report's front page has this seething call to action: "Limit global warming to 1.5°C, struggle to adapt to 2°C, or face catastrophic consequences at 2.6°C and beyond." The media skews toward this numerical doom-and-gloom for two main reasons: One, journalists are often taught people pay attention to negative information. Two, scientists are often taught numbers speak for themselves. Logically then, numbers with negative consequences should make people care…
Instead of telling governments to fix a leak because the "data says so," we need to emphasize the positive impact on people.
No. As someone with training in data journalism and storytelling, I advise considering the underlying psychology. In 2023, a Pew Research Center survey revealed 7 in 10 Americans feel "sad about what is happening to the Earth" after seeing climate change in the news. Despite that negative frame, only about 4 in 10 Americans feel "optimistic we can address climate change" when they see news on the topic. And only about 1 in 10 Americans feel activism is "extremely or very effective at getting elected officials to act on the issue." Sadness, fear, and anxiety don't often translate to motivation.
"Climate change" and "greenhouse gases" are simply too abstract. When former U.S. President Joe Biden said climate change is an "existential threat to all of us," it felt like a hypothetical issue. When the media reduces climate change to facts and numbers—to "emissions" and "gigatons" and "degrees Celsius"—it feels like a psychologically distant entity devoid of humanity and ineligible for our care.
How then should we communicate? Maybe the solution is emphasizing the negative consequences on human beings… showing images of wildfires destroying communities and people suffering from drought. Nonprofits, for example, traditionally use negative imagery of emaciated children, often Black and brown, to get donors' attention. And many studies show this "poverty porn" works. After Haiti was severely damaged by an earthquake in 2010, for example, the negative images of victims was criticized by the media. But it led to the second biggest success in the organization's fundraising history.
Destroyed Houses during Haiti's Earthquake in 2010. (Photo: ECHO/Raphaël Brigandi via Flickr).
These conclusions, however, lack nuance and ethics. Negative imagery may inspire pity and a donation out of guilt in the short-term. But it can lead to decreased care in the long-term. By portraying people in an undignified light, as "others" in need of "saving," we fetishize their suffering and infantilize their agency. Research demonstrates we attribute less respect and less agency to those in helpless, suffering outgroups, and are less likely to back policies that support them.
If negative data, "poverty porn," and "disaster porn" all aren't the answer, what then is? In my TEDx talk on data communication, I emphasize how emotion guides our decision-making. Research has found people gave the most money to charity after hearing simple stories that start with sadness and end on hope. Yes, negative frames do grab attention and elicit sympathy. But evidence of success emotionally inspires us to act.
Consider the U.N.'s 1% response rate to gas leak notifications. According to the executive director, "We are quite literally talking about screwing bolts tighter in some cases." Our current approach can't even get governments to screw in a bolt. If we want global leaders to keep their COP29 promise of $300 billion in annual funding for developing countries (which the U.S. certainly isn't helping with anymore), we desperately need to pivot.
Instead of telling governments to fix a leak because the "data says so," we need to emphasize the positive impact on people. How will decreasing your abstract methane emissions lead to better health for human beings? How will donating trillions to some abstract goal of "1.5°C" benefit people in your local community that you personally care about? If we want the climate crisis to be seen as not just an "existential" environmental problem, but a horrifically human one happening right now close to home, we need to stop sharing negative stats and start telling hopeful stories. Especially with staunch resistance from a second Trump administration, we need to communicate the climate crisis in a much more human and much more ethical way if we are to inspire global action.
The party is very much at a crossroads: It can embrace progressivism and forge a new, compelling identity or it can take cues from the donor and consultant class and embrace the very policies that precipitated our current political crisis.
Over the weekend, Politicoreported that, in early February, a group of Democratic “consultants, campaign staffers, elected officials, and party leaders” had convened in Virginia to chart a course forward for the party. The so-called “Comeback Retreat” was organized by the corporate centrist think tank Third Way and resulted in a summary document highlighting some of the top takeaways from the convening. In a series of bullet points, the authors of the document summarize the ways that, in their view, Democrats can reconnect with working class voters.
The Democratic Party is still reeling from its loss to President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement in November, and party leaders are correct in thinking they should adopt a new tack. However, Third Way, and its brand of tried-and-failed Republican-lite politics, should not have any say in the way the Democratic Party reforms itself as it heads into the 2026 midterm and 2028 presidential election.
The Comeback Retreat summary focuses on Democrats’ cultural disconnect with working class voters, as well as Democrats’ lack of “economic trust” with voters. The document first points to issues in each category and then offers solutions for rebuilding across both lines. Some of these issues and prescriptions are of the milquetoast variety typically generated by the consultant class. Democrats should “acknowledge [voters’] struggles and speak to real concerns,” advises one point, while elsewhere the document recommends “[improving] Democratic communication and media strategy.” No political strategist would disagree that these are both good practices for any successful campaign.
If Democrats really want to speak to voters’ concerns, they should start by addressing trends that are making life unlivable for so many Americans.
However, situated alongside these poli-sci bromides are some truly reactionary ideas. In the cultural dimension, the document encourages Democrats to “embrace masculinity” and celebrate “traditional American imagery (e.g., farms, main streets).” Apparently, Third Way and its colleagues don’t consider city dwellers to be traditionally American. On the economic side, the document encourages Democrats to stop “demonizing wealth and corporations” and to “avoid an anti-capitalist stance.” The party also, per Third Way, needs to “move away from the dominance of small-dollar donors whose preferences may not align with the broader electorate.”
If the party “moves away” from small-dollar donors, that apparently means “moving toward” millionaire, billionaire, and corporate donors.
Finally, the document devotes a fair amount of time to “reduc[ing] far-left influence and infrastructure.” Recommendations include building a pipeline of moderate Democrats to staff the ranks of the party and run for office, banning “far-left” candidate questionnaires, and “push[ing] back” against far-left staffers and groups who, according to Third Way, exert “disproportionate influence” in the party. (I’m pleased, as a member of the so-called “far-left,” to learn that we wield so much power within the party—and expect that our influence on party policy will become visible any day now.)
Taken together, a very clear image emerges of the Democratic Party envisioned by Third Way: It is pro-capitalist, pro-corporate, and preferential to big donors over small ones. It also celebrates masculinity and a traditional America while rejecting “identity-based” concerns. To put it another way, it sounds a lot like the modern GOP right before the MAGA movement took over.
This list of prescriptions—cooked up at a retreat held in the richest county in the U.S., where I seriously doubt there were working class voters present—is a recipe for disaster for the Democratic Party. In 2024, former Vice President Kamala Harris ran a campaign that was heavily focused on Republicans disaffected with Trump and aimed at presenting the Democrats as a kinder, gentler GOP, the kind that we might have today if Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney had become the standard-bearer instead of Donald Trump. This strategy backfired catastrophically. Doubling down on it would be pure political malpractice.
The Democratic Party does need to emphasize “shared values,” as the document says. These values, though, include the notion that healthcare is a human right that should be provided by the government, not a privilege. They embrace the idea that the U.S. needs to develop more clean energy sources, not drill for more oil and gas—with renewable energy creating more jobs than drilling. And Americans agree that corporations and the wealthy should be taxed more, not celebrated for their ingenuity in hoarding wealth.
If Democrats really want to speak to voters’ concerns, they should start by addressing trends that are making life unlivable for so many Americans. The affordability crunch caused by corporate greed, the climate crisis, our ever-more-expensive healthcare system, and our flailing democracy all provide the party with openings to take bold, progressive policy stands. However, these stances are completely incompatible with the regressive, triangulating politics that Third Way envisions.
The Democratic Party is very much at a crossroads: It can embrace progressivism and forge a new, compelling identity that speaks directly to voters’ concerns—especially working-class voters. Or it can take cues from the donor and consultant class and embrace the very policies that precipitated our current political crisis. The former approach requires bravery and risk-taking; the latter only asks that the party backslides into its old habits and, quite possibly, political obsolescence.